In situ and Ex situ Conservation of Commercial Tropical Trees - ITTO

459Conservation of Soil Microbial Diversity fromthe Tropical Rain Forests: Its Importance to PlantationForestry Development and for Future BiotechnologyOKA KARYANTOFaculty of Forestry, Gadjah Mada UniversityYogyakarta 55281, Indonesiaokakaryanto@mailcity.comAbstract. Among terrestrial ecosystems, tropical rain forests provide the most complexecosystem supported by a massive belowground microbial diversity. However, deforestationactivities and ecosystem disturbance endanger this biodiversity. Compared to that in macroorganisms(fauna or vegetation), research on diversity of soil microbes in the tropical rain forestis still in its infancy. There is obvious lack of knowledge about their structure and their role insupporting forest productivity. Moreover, despite their vast applications in commercialbiotechnological processes, knowledge on their potential use is still limited. Most groups of thissoil microbial diversity remain unknown and unexplored and, therefore, still untapped.An understanding of the mechanisms of (i) plant-soil microbe interactions and (ii) the role of soilmicrobes in nutrient or soil organic matter transformation and cycling may provide insight onhow soil microbes contribute to sustained forest productivity. Conventional approaches usingtaxonomical or phylogenetical methods are limited due to our inability to link their diversity withtheir ecological functions. Evidence of frequent horizontal gene-transfers among microbes insoils also another barrier. In short, microbial diversity is a complex issue. Recently, however,trends in using functional diversity to study this group of organisms are starting to produceresults.Extravagant metabolic diversity and inability to cultivate (unculturability properties) most soilmicrobes present major constraints to applying culture-based collection methods during aconservation program. In this regard, molecular-based techniques seem to be promising tools fordiversity assessment, conservation programs (soil microbes as a soil meta-genome) and futureuses in biotechnology. It is suggested that the land area covered by in situ conservation of aboveground macro-organism biodiversity also serves as the most important source of soil microbialdiversity. Therefore, a linkage between in situ conservation of faunal and floral biodiversity andthat of the associated soil microbes is proposed.A global collaboration is urged to ensure sustained utilisation of this mutual diversity and toavoid any extinction of potentially valuable gene resources, especially since tropical rain forestecosystems are located in the less-developed regions of the world.Introduction and Scope of the DiscussionThere are significant roles for microbial diversity due to the capacity of theseorganisms to: (i) produce novel and potentially important biotechnological